The Governor’s Redistricting Reform Commission held a public hearing yesterday in Altoona, gathering public comment on the congressional redistricting, with the 2020 census looming.
The commission was organized by Governor Wolf after the State Supreme Court struck down the 2011 map drawn by the Republican-controlled state legislature, ruling that it was gerrymandered to favor the GOP. The hearing yesterday was the fifth of eight scheduled events and the nearest to Indiana County after one at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on May 2nd.
The overwhelming conclusion was that it’s an enormously difficult challenge to draw fair district maps, or as Commission Chairman David Thornburgh put it, who gets to choose who redraws the maps, and who get to choose who gets to choose?
After its ruling before last year’s elections, the Democrat-controlled Supreme Court drew a new congressional map that grouped Indiana County with the new 15th District, stretching all the way to the New York border. That led former State House Majority Leader Dave Reed to give up his run for congress and eventually to leave politics.
The Governor’s Redistricting Reform Commission, which has been heavily-criticized by state Republican leaders, has only three hearings left before making its recommendations. All three hearings are in the eastern part of the state, in Philadelphia, Bethlehem, and Wilkes-Barre.
